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ChrisBaggott

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ChrisBaggott

Favorite Thing About SEO:

INTENT! Search is the only marketing tool that isn't interruption. The searcher wants you to help them.

Bio:

My "official" Bio:
Chris Baggott has been a leader in marketing for more than 20 years and was recently named one of the 100 Most Influential Marketers of 2008. Chris has been quoted in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc. and ADWEEK.
Chris is a co-founder of ExactTarget and is currently the CoFounder/CEO of Compendium Blogware, a software as a service blogging solution for businesses and organizations. Compendium focuses on organizational blogging and its role in search marketing.
Finally, Chris is author of a book from Wiley: Email Marketing By The Numbers. He is also one of the featured marketers in the new book from Wiley: Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus .

Great post Tom. I couldn't agree more with the need for a Content Marketing Platform. And your hire also seems to be fitting with what we are seeing in the marketplace.

I get a little nervous with the titles however. Oracle can be a little intimidating to a lot of organizations. Perhaps the most common title we see today is 'Content Coordinator'. This person's job #1 is to break down the internal content silos and make sure that content isn't isolated and flows appropriately through all channels.

Your post does a terrific job of highlighting some of the more advanced Content strategies...but many organizations are missing the obvious blocking & tackling:

Content can come from anywhere, and most companies are missing the most obvious pockets that exist within their own walls. Break down the silos, uncover amazing hidden content sources and let it flow through the right channels. Doesn't take an , Oracle just a little coordination. :-)

As the tail gets longer and personalization grows, it becomes mandatory that organizations (our clients) dig into each subsegment of their audience? The right content for the right search.Email Marketing followed is similar path right? It started with lists and we talked about the best day to send our "newsletter" It has evolved to data-driven relevant content (for many) the right message for the right person at the right time.If I'm a pharmaceutical company I want to target the right content for Doctors, that would be different perhaps than for nurses, that will be different from a patient researching a specific drug that will be different from a person who is searching on a specific disease state. Heck, think diabetes: I want content for a 14 year old, different content for their parents and different content for the 70 year old who was just diagnosed.Great content is determined by the consumer of that content. Those consumers are becoming more and more segmented and being trained to expect (as they should) specifically relevant content. May 18, 2010

usually it's not difficult to negotiate salary. Keep in mind two things:

One: any money you pay yourself is money that doesn't go into the business so you and your board need to weigh the benefits of paying you that extra 100 vs. hiring another developer or couple of salespeople. Big salary demands are a red flag that you might not have confidence in the future big picture.

Two: VC's invest in management and execution...they don't want to run companies, they want you to run the company and in that they want to make sure that you are comfortably motivated so you can focus. If you are worried about your mortgage or childcare bills....have to have a second job you are distracted. They don't want you distracted.

One thing you don't talk about....and probably for good reason is about Analytics. Does Google not pay attention to what people 'do' on the page? If a page has a lot of links and a 99% bounce rate, and another page has fewer links but a 30% bounce rate, or high conversion rate, read time.... isn't that evidence that the page is making the searcher happy?

If one result makes a searcher happy and the other clearly does not make the searcher happy wouldn't the 'good' page triumph?

Are people making a mistake bundling trust and authority in with "Branding"?

Do actual site analytics play any role? P&G may be the biggest brand in Laundry Detergent. But If a "Laundry Detergent" page by an unknown brand has high engagement, low bounce rates and a high percentage of click throughs compared to a P&G page....wouldn't that page be more trusted? Are not analytics votes?

I'd be interested in learning more why you think social media is stronger for smaller business? Generally speaking, by definition smaller businesses depend on longer tail activity. That means search. Weather I have a unique product or service or own a dry cleaner on the corner....I need to get the broadest reach possible.

It's not that an organization shouldn't engage in social media, it's that an organization should aim it's efforts at the biggest opportunities. 90-ish % of all web users use email and search daily. 16% (according to eMarketer) hit a social netowrk once a month.

As Seth Godin says on this subject: "We havent yet mastered email and search and here we are rushing to facebook and twitter" (ok, I might be paraphrasing Seth a little) The point is that marketers are hot on the new shiny thing and hate blocking and tackling. data and content in both email and search will drive way more engagement than anything one could do on facebook.

I agree that for a linking strategy this is a bad idea, however with the right subdomain and page title (www.blog.joestoasters/stainless_steel_toaster) that is frequently updated with only stainless steel toaster content, odds are this page will gain all the benifits that Rand pointed out on the left side of the whiteboard. So what if you are not passing that link juce to your main site?

I think the issue is that many people think you can't convert from this page. This just isn't true, the conversion ratio may not be as high, but it's made up by increased traffic.

In our company we have 500 or so such pages that beat our site by a factor of 5x. Our site draws traffic from a few hundred keywords and about 50% are branded search terms. Our blogs drive traffic from a few thousand keywords and only 5% of them are branded.

If you want people to go to your site and view more toasters...that's where you just have to follow basic conversion rules...test test test.

As always, Spot On. Compendium Blogware is growing rapidly in this environment primarily because of the SEO message behind Corporate Blogging. In tough times, nobody can afford to engage in experiments without tangible ROI. To date, business blogging has been this touch-feely thing that has not been challanged by ROI responsiblity.

Great video, I am a little unsure about your blog vs. website traffic issue. You point out the real problem with keyword cannibilsm (sp) as one of conversion ( that the site outconverts the blogs)

But most bloggers don't think of CTA's on their Corporate Blogs. As you have mentioned many times, blogs are great for SEO...business should embrace this right?

It's really about how do you get the searchers who visit your blog through keyword search to take the next step in the relationship. You talk about this when you say that the blog is the introduction to your brand or business...it's your credibility builder...in many ways it's better if the first visit from someone is to a blog vs. a Corporate site.

I say don't fight it, embrace it....we like to think of Corporate Blogs as Organic Landing pages. Win the search, win the engagement and use a good CTA to win the conversion.